Although. Some translations do have it this way, with a footnote that the bottles are actually wineskins. Still, the metaphor isn't clear in these terms. If you didn't already know, it would be natural to ask "What's wrong with new wine in old bottles, as long as they've been properly washed?"
It's like the world has a vendetta against clarity.
Then, today, Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit posts:
NEW WINE IN OLD CASKS: Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million donation to Newark public schools failed miserably — here’s where it went wrong.
This, however, is going too far. Much too far. And Sarah hails from Europe, and all Europeans are wine experts, so there's no excuse for this!
Here's Matthew 9:17:
What does it mean? Different commentaries have different explanations, but I like the explanation that it is a reminder to keep an open mind. It's amusing to think of the brains of the close-minded bursting and dribbling out when confronted with new ideas."... Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Anyway, you probably knew this, but I had to get it out of my system. Blame Grim; he gave me posting privileges.
I have broad shoulders, and can carry much blame.
ReplyDeleteNothing wrong at all with being upset by it. It's literally losing the original message in the interest of "clarifying the metaphor". But it does nothing of the sort. Updating the language at the cost of meaning is a step backwards, not forwards. One of my favorite Sunday sermons came from a priest who put the Parable of the Prodigal Son into cultural context. We still get the basic meaning of the parable (i.e. God will always forgive and take us back, even if we stray), but we lose so much of the impact of the parable when we take out the cultural context. In the parable, the father goes out into the field to greet his returned son. In Jewish culture of the first century AD, this did not happen. A father may allow a returned son to come into the house to meet with him, but the parent did not go to meet the child. Such a detail, told to a Jewish audience of the time would hold very specific and powerful meaning. It's not that God welcomes you back, its that he is so overjoyed that he will do what no father, regardless of how loving, would ever do for any child. He will come to you.
ReplyDeleteAnd with that small insight, a lovely tale about the forgiveness of God is brought into much brighter focus. The parable loses some meaning without that context. So to object to changing the meaning of the expression (and thus the entire verse) simply in an effort to make the basic metaphor more clear is ridiculous.
Nicely said.
ReplyDeleteIt's sort of like that martial arts saying about not being able to learn anything new if your tea cup is full. You have to pour or drink out the old tea, before you can take the new tea.
ReplyDeleteHow about the lesson about giving alms with the right hand while keeping that secret from the left hand? Given that the alms were often foods and the left hand was reserved for hygiene the instruction might be rendered " Don't confuse the hand that feeds others with the hand that wipes your own as-h-le".
ReplyDeleteHow about the lesson about giving alms with the right hand while keeping that secret from the left hand? Given that the alms were often foods and the left hand was reserved for hygiene the instruction might be rendered " Don't confuse the hand that feeds others with the hand that wipes your own as-h-le".
ReplyDeleteThanks, Grim! :-)
ReplyDeleteMike, that's a good way of putting it. Thanks.
On the very off chance that Sarah should stop by, I am teasing.